


If The Blessing Kicks In

by gayfranzkafka



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas asks if he can bless Dean, M/M, set right around 4x1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 11:13:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29873775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayfranzkafka/pseuds/gayfranzkafka
Summary: “Dean, can I—“ Cas holds out a hand, then, as if that completes the question, as if the gesture is explicable in and of itself. Like so much else about Cas, it’s not—instantly explicable, that is.Dean raises his eyebrows. “Can you what?” He still can’t quite get over the fact that he’s standing in some rundown motel room with his brother and an angel. He’s still not fully convinced this guyisan angel.“I’d like—I think I should bless you.”Of all the things Dean was bracing to be asked, that wasn’t it. “Can you—I’m sorry, did you just ask if you couldblessme?”
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	If The Blessing Kicks In

“Dean, can I—“ Cas holds out a hand, then, as if that completes the question, as if the gesture is explicable in and of itself. Like so much else about Cas, it’s not—instantly explicable, that is.

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Can you what?” He still can’t quite get over the fact that he’s standing in some rundown motel room with his brother and an angel. He’s still not fully convinced this guy _is_ an angel.

“I’d like—I think I should bless you.”

Of all the things Dean was bracing to be asked, that wasn’t it. “Can you—I’m sorry, did you just ask if you could _bless_ me?”

Cas shifts around, then, a stern expression on his face. It’s one Dean is already starting to recognize, although he can’t quite read what emotion is behind it. Is it frustration at being misunderstood? Or—it almost comes across as embarrassment. If that’s something angels can even feel.

When Cas doesn’t reply, Dean says, “You’d like to—why—will it hurt?” He’s not sure why that question comes out of his mouth, and he tries to play it off as a joke as soon as it does. “I mean, if it’s gonna be anything like that true voice shit you pulled on me a few days ago, shattering all the windows and shit—“

“It won’t be,” Cas says, interrupting. “There are many ways to bless someone. I can do it so that it’s in keeping with your human conventions. I can’t imagine it should hurt.”

“You can’t imagine it should,” Dean repeats. “So you don’t _think_ it will? Or you—“

Suddenly Sam, who has been watching the unfolding conversation intently, speaks up. “Let him do it, Dean.”

“What?” Dean tries to put as much _I’m your big brother_ energy into one word as possible.

“We’ve got a real, live—“

“I wouldn’t say I’m alive,” Cas interjects.

“It’s a turn of phrase, buddy,” Dean tells him.

“My point is,” Sam continues, “is that we’ve got an angel of the Lord here in front of us, and you just got back from hell, and I—I think we could use all the blessing we can get.”

Seeing the way Sam’s looking at him—how Sam hasn’t really stopped looking at him, ever since he got back—Dean doesn’t say no to Cas outright. Instead, he asks, “What is—is it like some sot of protective spell, then?”

“It’s not a spell,” Cas says.

“Well, what is it?”

“Are you unfamiliar with the term ‘blessing’?”

“No, sure, I’ve heard of it,” Dean tells him. “But I mean, if you’re really an angel, and blessings are a part of your repertoire—what does it _do_?”

“What does it ‘do’?” Cas repeats, turning his head to one side. He almost, if Dean is being honest, reminds him of Jason from the _Friday the Thirteenth_ movies, sometimes. Which is part of why he’s not exactly eager for the laying on of hands, or whatever.

“Yeah, what does it do? Holy water hurts demons. Jesus’ name makes ‘em flinch. What’s a blessing gonna do to me?”

“It doesn’t—a blessing is not quantifiable in those terms. Its effects are not something easily measured.”

“Really,” Dean says, unimpressed.

“But it must—“ Sam interjects. “In the Bible, angels show up, they bless someone, and—bam!—they’ve got a kid at 103, or whatever.”

“Sometimes, yes, the effects are more readily apparent than others,” Cas concedes.

“But not always,” Dean says.

“Not always,” Cas affirms. “It’s—those blessings were given with explicit instruction from the Lord. But it is within my power to bless even without such instruction. I am of the Lord’s glory and power, and it resides in me at all moments. I’m somewhat of a—a conduit, I suppose. But when he does not choose to look upon, to speak to me, before a particular blessing is given, it’s harder to say what the blessing will lead to.”

“When he doesn’t choose to look upon you?” Dean says. “Isn’t the big guy omniscient, or whatever? I mean, I never took a class or anything, but I’m pretty sure that’s God 101.”

“There are degrees of observation which he affords each of us in different instances.”

“Degrees of—so he’s not affording you particular interest, right now, then?”

Cas gives Dean a more guarded look, then, almost as if the question hurts him. “I have no doubt that it would be within his will for me to bless you.”

“You’re just telling me you don’t know exactly what will come of it.”

“It suppose it depends.”

“Depends? Depends on what?”

“On my state, upon giving the blessing. And your state, upon receiving it.”

“My state—see, I don’t like the sound of that,” Dean says. “I haven’t exactly lived my life right, not by whatever I imagine the big guy’s—“

At this point, Sam interjects, doing that little half-mutter of his, as if he doesn’t want Cas to hear him. “Will you stop?”

“Stop what?”

“Stop calling him, ‘the big guy.’”

“What do you want me to call him?” Dean says. Before Sam can answer, he continues, “Anyway, my point is, I don’t think I’ve been living up to his standards. How do I know this blessing won’t just ‘zap’ me into ashes?”

Sam, at this point clearly fed up with Dean, adds, “Or a pillar of salt?”

Dean, choosing to ignore Sam’s mocking tone, says, “Yeah, exactly.”

“You won’t—“ Cas starts, then stops, and tries again. “You, too, are of His power and glory, although it’s—diluted is perhaps the wrong word. It’s _contained_ , in you, as compared to in me. But a blessing—I’ve noticed, in my time, that the blessing reacts to the Lord as he is in both parties. They don’t go just one way. It has to be received as well as given, after all. It’s participatory. I can’t deny—you are marked, Dean, and it would be—I’m curious, what it would be to touch your forehead and speak a blessing. It is meant, foremost, as a gift to you, although I can’t say quite what it will mean yet. But to put it—how do I say this in terms amenable to you?” Cas thinks a minute, then adds, “It would be something to take with you into danger.”

Dan gives Cas a long look, and Cas looks straight back. It’s a little unnerving, almost like making eye contact with a dog. Not that Dean believes in a hierarchy of species, really. It’s just that there’s some undeniably foreign perception that you get in the eyes of a dog, and there’s something undeniably foreign to Cas’ gaze, too. Only Dean suspects that he might be the dog, in this scenario. He gets the feeling that there’s more going on in this room than he’s aware of, that Cas is seeing things he can’t.

Dean’s used to being on the other side of this, of knowing what’s going on when others don’t. He’s used to being the one saying, “The stories are true”—or, more often, to not saying anything at all, to trying to save people and hoping they won’t notice.

But now here’s Castiel, appearing out of nowhere and telling Dean there’s more to the world than he thought there was. And Dean still doesn’t know quite why he’s done it. He thinks about all the times he’s been the one bringing people in on it, on reality, how often the one thing he wishes he could say to them is simply, _Trust me_. How hard it is to make people realize that, while the stories they’ve heard, and their newly-revealed realities, may be terrifying as shit, Dean’s not going to hurt them. He’s there to help.

“Okay,” Dean tells Cas.

“Okay?” Cas says.

“Don’t make me change my mind. How do we do this thing?”

“I—“ Cas starts, but again, like before, he stops, reaches out his hand. As if it’s beyond words. Or as if it’s instinctual, something Dean should know how to do without needing it explained. Like breathing. Like knowing, when there’s a wound, that you need to stop the bleeding.

Dean braces himself for Cas to step forward, then. But Cas doesn’t. He stays where he is, hand still outstretched, and Dean realizes that Cas is waiting for Dean to come to him.

Dean takes a breath and steps forward. He doesn’t expect to close his eyes, but he does. He feels Cas’ hand on his forehead. He expects something—a shock of electricity, a burning sensation, maybe, or a feeling like a splash of cold water—but Cas’ hand feels very human. He’s in a human vessel, after all. Dean remembers Cas telling him that.

It’s not Dean’s first time being touched by an angel—by this angel in particular. The scar on his shoulder is proof enough of that. But it’s his first time he can remember. It’s his first time while on earth.

So he expects it to feel strange, almost alien. Everything else like Cas—not that he’s come in contact with anything quite like Cas—but the demons, ghosts, spirits—either it’s pain, or it’s nothing. They are so not of this world that you can’t reach out and touch them, or they are here to cause damage.

But Cas’ hand feels _familiar_. Dean finds, embarrassingly, that he’s thinking of his mother, how she’d reach out and feel his forehead when he was sick, try to see if he was running a temperature. He wonders how his skin feels to Cas—hot, or cold, or like nothing at all?

“Dean Winchester,” Cas says then, and Dean nearly jumps out of his skin, having forgotten that part of the blessing was going to be said out loud. “Dean Winchester, I bless you in the name of the Lord.”

There’s a silence, but Cas keeps his hand on Dean.

“Is that—is that it?” Dean says, after a second, opening his eyes.

“Would you like there to be more?” Cas asks, looking at him. It’s an odd angle to be having at which to be having a conversation with someone.

“No,” Dean says. “I just—those things are usually longer, from what I’ve seen of them. I don’t feel any different.” Dean pauses. “Do you?”

Cas removes his hand from Dean’s forehead, then, and looks at it, almost as if it’s something outside himself. Which, maybe it is. Deans’ still not quite sure how the whole “vessel” thing works.

“I’m not sure,” Cas says finally.

“You’re not—you’re an angel. How are you not sure?”

“As I said earlier, you humans are so much more— _contained_ than us. It’s like trying—I’m siphoning quite a lot through this vessel. I’m not quite used to it yet.”

“I don’t—maybe it’s me. You said it could affect things. And I don’t—I don’t really believe in all that stuff.” Dean feels apologetic, although he’s not sure why.

“ ‘That stuff’?” Cas repeats.

“Well, the Lord, and all that.”

Cas looks even more serious, then. If that’s even possible. “You will,” he says.

“Is that a threat?”

At this point, Sam interjects. “Do something—can you say something he’d believe in?” he asks Cas.

“What do you mean?” Cas asks.

“Well, you’re—you’re an angel, right? You’re closer to God, or something. And Dean can—he can see you. I mean—couldn’t you do some sort of blessing in _your_ name? Like a—a proxy?”

“I’m not quite sure I’m buying what it is this guy’s selling, Sam,” Dean says.

“Yeah, but you—“ Sam starts, then stops. Hesitates. Gives Cas this looks that makes Dean think of Sammy when he was little. How he used to look at their dad. “Could you bless me?” Sam asks, finally.

“You? No,” Cas says.

Sam doesn’t even argue the point, then, just falls silent.

“What the hell?” Dean says. “What’s the big deal? You wanna bless me, it doesn’t take, my brother believes in all this sh—my brother believes, and he’s here, asking to be blessed, and you won’t do it?”

“I have my reasons, reasons which I’m not sure are wise to divulge. Not yet. I’m not sure they’re something you’d be receptive to hearing.”

“Try me,” Dean says, biting mad.

But Cas doesn’t try. Instead he says, very evenly, “I can bless you again, if you’d like.”

Sam gives Dean an almost pleading look, then.

“I—alright,” Dean says. “What’s the harm in it?”

“There is no harm in it,” Cas tells him.

“That was a—oh, forget it. Alright.”

This time, Dean steps forward before Cas even has his hand out. And then there they are again, palm to forehead. It’s hard for Dean to not feel a little ridiculous. He thinks maybe his forehead really is a little hot. But then Cas is speaking.

“I, Castiel, angel of the Lord, bless Dean Winchester in my name. I ask that what piece of the Lord dwells in me might hold and keep him, and I ask—I ask that what piece of the Lord that dwells in him might bless me as well.”

This time, Dean feels something, almost like an egg being cracked over his head, the yolk running down. Dean used to do this chant, sometimes, when he was a kid—it was a schoolyard thing, more for girls, and he can’t even remember who it was that taught it to him. But he and Sammy would do this chant: _Crack an egg on your head, let the yolk drip down, let the yolk drip down. Stab a knife in your back, let the blood drip down, let the blood drip down. Spiders running up your arm, spider running down. Criss cross, apple sauce, now you’ve got the chills!_

You’d mime it out, what you were saying, as you were saying it. The egg and the knife and the spiders. And Dean would always swear to himself that he really felt it, though he never gave Sam the satisfaction of admitting it. This blessing feels like that, as if Cas’ words have manifested—not a thing itself, but a ghost of a thing. Something not quite solid enough to be sure whether it’s really there, or if you’re just wishing it into being.

“Now I’ve got the chills,” Dean says, joking, stepping away and giving a playful shiver, to show just how little it all just meant to him.

“The chills?” Cas repeats.

“Yeah. Like, crack an egg on your head, let the yolk drip down—“

Cas is giving Dean a slightly horrified look, and so is Sam. A little too irreverent for them both, maybe. “You don’t know that one?” Dean says, stepping forward again and patting Cas on the arm. “That’s alright, buddy. I’ll teach it to you sometime.”

“It’s not every day I bless someone,” Cas says sternly.

“Yeah, well, it’s not every day I go around teaching people—angels—schoolyard chants. So I guess that makes us even.”

“There was never a debt,” Cas says. But then he adds, “But you haven’t taught it to me yet.”

“Stick around,” Dean says, “and if the blessing kicks in, maybe I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've only seen like ten episodes of spn & only 2 with Cas in them, so this is written primarily on vibes. I was a religion major and that part of my brain jumped out. <3


End file.
